Trendy Tailfins and iMacs

"Nah," an American Airlines executive will one day say to a Boeing
representative. "We'll order the Airbus instead."

"Why?" the Boeing person will ask. "Our plane is bigger, has a greater
range, and is cheaper to buy and operate."

"Yeah," the American executive will rejoin, pointing a finger at a
picture of the Airbus, "but that plane looks faster."

What may one day happen to airplanes has already happened to most
high-technology products style has become paramount. In these days of
mature technology, when competing goods all have a full complement of
desired features, checkbook-happy Americans are free to buy on the basis of
looks, image and social cachet. Functionality has dwindled in importance
and is no longer the primary consideration at purchase time (if, in fact,
it ever was).

Apple's successful iMac provides a colorful illustration. Launched only
last summer, the translucent, egg-shaped computer is already in the hands
of a million customers, largely thanks to an advertising campaign that
emphasized style over functionality. Now, Apple, aiming to continue the
iMac's sales momentum, has released the machine in five different colors
("flavors"), and recent marketing has drawn attention to nothing else the
computer's tech specs have just about been dismissed as unimportant.

That's because mainstream consumers aren't particularly interested in
tech specs, not as long as the machine simply does what it's asked to do.
Buyers seem to be taking for granted that iMacs can write letters, play
games and access the Internet but why? Something must have convinced the
masses of the machine's ability, and it couldn't have been Apple's own
advertising. It is instead the general societal perception of personal
computers as a maturing technology. Jane Q. Public feels reasonably assured
that any computer she buys will meet her needs; different computers
therefore compete mainly in style and price, not features, and the iMac
sells precisely because it offers style over function.

The same maturation process visited automobiles beginning in the 1920s.
Henry Ford was eventually forced to replace the Model T with the updated
Model A because Ford lost its sales lead to Chevrolet, which introduced an
innovation to the industry a stylish mainstream car. In later decades,
marketing continued to appeal less to functionality and more to style, and
1990s auto advertising, at least within a given "class" of car (e.g.,
mid-size sedan), almost always puts style first.

None of Volkswagen's new ad campaigns, for instance, does anything other
than portray the company's cars as trendy. Automobile features, and value
for money, are generally mentioned only in ads for the cheapest cars, for
which low profit margins provide manufacturers little incentive to increase
style. The list of such examples is endless and will probably, given
American consumer trends, continue to be endless.

Is it really so far fetched to imagine functional criteria being
replaced by style in the aircraft industry, or in the space industry? "No,"
NASA might one day say to Lockheed, "I think we'll go with this other
company's rocket theirs looks so cool!" If the same maturation
happens in the space industry, why, given our evidence in other fields,
wouldn't we expect exactly that dialogue?

Society somehow obliges us, as consumers, to stay stylish, to keep up
with the Joneses. (This concept is the subject of another column.) We owe
it to ourselves as citizens, though, to make sure that the goods we
purchase meet our functional expectations. With so many technologies
reaching a relatively mature state nowadays, with so many industries now
free to ignore tech specs in favor of colors and flavors, we are especially
vulnerable to a sort of parasitical advertising that can force us to pay
more for style and style alone. Goods prices should rise only when new
features are innovated, not just when fashions change.

Style sells, of course, and clever manufacturers sometimes change
product designs solely to capitalize on people's thirst to remain current.
The phrase "planned obsolescence" comes from the auto industry of the
1950s; carmakers plastered more and more chrome and higher and higher
tailfins onto each year's models while leaving the cars' mechanicals the
same, and style-conscious, functionality-ignorant suburbanites snapped them
up at great cost.

We are very much in danger of another such scenario today. The
maturation of many modern high-tech products, and the huge variety of goods
available, causes many consumers' eyes to glaze over when it comes time to
make a purchase. Confused consumers are easy prey for advertisers, who
attempt to instill "brand consciousness" based on style in order to
immediately resolve product confusion. That such advertising often causes
consumers to pay more than they should is easily overlooked.

It shouldn't be. Consumers must educate themselves to make sure the
computers and other high-tech goods they buy aren't unnecessarily laden
with chrome; iMac buyers should make sure to choose that machine based on
its functional suitability, not just on the height of its virtual tailfins.
The typical American consumer of the next millennium, no matter how
style-conscious, should keep an eye out for the filament, not just the
flash, lest she go blind. I hope, at least as a first result of such
education, that the next-generation space shuttle never has tailfins it
doesn't need.